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[iidesuyo]

What's up with the gross exaggerations of PS1 load times in this thread? Generally, the only load times worth mentioning were upon booting the game. I can't think of a single game that took more than 5 seconds to load between levels.

I think it's overexaggerated as well (especially back then), but there were some early games that had lots of loading screens. Formula 1 for example.

But if you want to complain about loading times, get a Neo Geo CD.

And another advantage of the CD: Demos left and right.

 

[TI82]

I think a lot of people have this nostalgia for the n64 and remember their playground debates.

"Load times!!! 64 bit!! Zeldaaaaaaaaaa!" Etc.

 

[McLovin]

We wouldn't have had Mario 64, Banjo, Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask.

Fuck CD's.

Those games were good in spite of the limitations. Who knows how awesome they would have been.
Much like every single 1st party original Wii game.

 

[DonMigs85]

I think the only CD-ROM consoles that had truly terrible load times were the Neo-Geo CD and maybe the 3DO.

 

[klee123]

Wouldn't really have mattered much.

Nintendo's horrible treatment of third parties during the NES and SNES era and Sony doing the complete opposite meant that the majority of the third parties would have jumped ship regardless.

Anyone who think that Sony's success with the PSone is due to luck is deluded.

 

[SeventhSon]

There may be exaggeration, but may I assert: zero (no) load time is better than any load time.

 

[charsace]

Wouldn't have hurt Sony much since they were money hatting games.

 

[iidesuyo]

There may be exaggeration, but may I assert: zero (no) load time is better than any load time.

Not if the result is shitty music, badly compressed video (if any) and missing content.

Wouldn't have hurt Sony much since they were money hatting games.

Nintendo could have done the same. That's competion. They bought exclusive rights for Street Fighter II IIRC and gave Enix early access to 32 MBit ROMS.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I'm guessing Sony still would have won (although maybe not to the same extent) simply because they were much easier to work with. Nintendo not giving a shit about third parties is what hurt them and continues to hurt them.

Nintendo could have done the same. That's competion. They bought exclusive rights for Street Fighter II IIRC and gave Enix early access to 32 Bit ROMS.

Why didn't they with the N64, then?

 

[Mr. Doop]

I bet it would've been easier to find cases for N64 games.

 

[MisterHero]

The N64 had a disc drive and some of its biggest games were semi-developed for it. It was expensive and unpopular.

Its internet features were supposedly ahead of their time especially regarding user-generated content. It just wasn't enough to sell the platform.

 

[SeventhSon]

Not if the result is shitty music, badly compressed video (if any) and missing content.

If you're asserting that "chip tunes" are inherently inferior to CD music, I can't agree.

 

[klee123]

Nintendo could have done the same. That's competion. They bought exclusive rights for Street Fighter II IIRC and gave Enix early access to 32 Bit ROMS.

They didn't do shit during the 64 bit era though so doubt they would have done anything regardless if they used CD or Carts.

 

[iidesuyo]

Why didn't they with the N64, then?

Arrogance. They lowered the license fees after some time, but it was already too late and they still couldn't compete with the PS1. And how should FFVII have worked on a N64? They barely managed to squeeze Resi 2 onto a 512MBit catridge very late in the N64's life while sacrifying most of the video quality. Good luck trying that in 1996.

Yamauchi said that they wanted the cheap developers to go away, and let "quality rule over quantity" regarding 3rd Parties. In the end they got neither quality nor quantity.

If you're asserting that "chip tunes" are inherently inferior to CD music, I can't agree.

In Tomb Raider, you got Red Book Audio voice speech. In Turok 2, the voices sounded like a 1920's record player.

 

[Gurrry]

I base this nothing off my own personal opinion and speculation..

But I feel like if they were to have released a CD-Rom add-on.. it would have been terrible.

 

[DonMigs85]

If you're asserting that "chip tunes" are inherently inferior to CD music, I can't agree.

No, N64 tended to have pretty bad quality MIDI or mono audio tracks.

 

[Noobcraft]

Ocarina of time and Majoras mask had amazing soundtracks despite running on cartridges. Music wise they are probably the most relevant titles from that generation which says something.

 

[brainpann]

The N64 had a disc drive and some of its biggest games were semi-developed for it. It was expensive and unpopular.

Its internet features were supposedly ahead of their time especially regarding user-generated content. It just wasn't enough to sell the platform.

The 64DD doesnt really count. The discussion is about what if the N64 had launched with a cdrom. The 64DD came out in December of '99 and the media for those only held 64MB of data. That's still one tenth of a cd-rom. Also, by that point, carts had already reached 32MB.

Even with the N64's cart and texture cache limitation, developers were able to pull off some pretty amazing shit towards the end of the consoles life. I'm always amazed how much audio so many late N64 games contain. Yeah, its compressed to hell and back, but it's there.

 

[MrCunningham]

But if you want to complain about loading times, get a Neo Geo CD.

Yeah, the Neo-Geo CD has roughly over twice the amount of memory (7MB collectively) of the Sony Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn and only a single speed CD ROM drive to load everything. It was a really terrible combination. They did release a CDZ with a double speed CD ROM drive to fix the problem,and it did improve loading times, but that had a limited release.

There may be exaggeration, but may I assert: zero (no) load time is better than any load time.

Some N64 games still have loading times though. Resident Evil 2 on the N64 does because it has to decompress data off the cartridge. It isn't quite as long as the PS1 version, but it is still there. Wipeout 64 also has loading times because of cartridge decompression. There are a couple other games that do as well. It wasn't a common problem for N64 games, but it was there when developers had to compress a lot of data to the cartridge.

 

[SeventhSon]

No, N64 tended to have pretty bad quality MIDI or mono audio tracks.

I'm not as experienced in N64 as I am PlayStation, which is less than the previous gens. If what you say is true, then I'll agree, but I don't think that is inherent to a cart based system.

 

[iidesuyo]

Yeah, the Neo-Geo CD has roughly over twice the amount of memory (7MB collectively) of the Sony Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn and only a single speed CD ROM drive to load everything. It was a really terrible combination. They did release a CDZ with a double speed CD ROM drive to fix the problem,and it did improve loading times, but that had a limited release.

Some say the NGCDZ was just a single speed with more better buffer memory. Also prone to overheating.

Some N64 games still have loading times though. Resident Evil 2 on the N64 does because it has to decompress data off the cartridge. It isn't quite as long as the PS1 version, but it is still there. Wipeout 64 also has loading times because of cartridge decompression. There are a couple other games that do as well. It wasn't a common problem for N64 games, but it was there when developers had to compress a lot of data to the cartridge.

There were also SNES games with loading times, SF Alpha II for example. It used a special chip to decompress data, that was cheaper than using a larger cartridge.

Yeah, its compressed to hell and back, but it's there.

But that was the only secret. Lots of content in very low quality. Even the Mega Drive/Genesis could do FMVs, see the intro of Sonic 3D Blast.

 

[BWJinxing]

What I did like about N64 was (mostly) lack of loading screens. A CD based N64... I can't imagine honestly.

The N64 games with FMV is mind blowing thought on its own. Everything would have to be revisioned.

The multiplat market id assume would have been more diverse, but the PS one dual shock would have just flat out been better controller layout.

Its so hard to think about.

 

[MisterHero]

The 64DD doesnt really count. The discussion is about what if the N64 had launched with a cdrom. The 64DD came out in December of '99 and the media for those only held 64MB of data. That's still one tenth of a cd-rom. Also, by that point, carts had already reached 32MB.

Even with the N64's cart and texture cache limitation, developers were able to pull off some pretty amazing shit towards the end of the consoles life. I'm always amazed how much audio so many late N64 games contain. Yeah, its compressed to hell and back, but it's there.

They were developing games for DD since the N64's debut. Ocarina of Time alone was a better game for leaving it behind. F-Zero X lost out in most regions but again it wasn't enough to support the platform. It was so early that I doubt either JP or western publishers would've made good use of it.

Any one of EAD's games impresses me way more than ones full of FMV and orchestral music. If you think this is a jab at PSX and Saturn, it's not. I even hold Nintendo's 64 games higher than even their modern games. Their modern games are fantastic as well.

The sound technology isn't as important as the actual composition. While that thought is about sound, it could apply to other design aspects as well.

 

[iidesuyo]

I doubt either JP or western publishers would've made good use of it.

How could they, the DD was another shady add on in the lines of the Mega CD or the 32X, that thing was doomed from the beginning. Nintendo only released it because they could. It was another failure in the making, 3 months before the release of the PS2.

Their modern games are fantastic as well. The sound technology isn't as important as the actual composition.

I disagree. Suikoden or Castlevania SotN would not have been the same games with MIDI soundtracks. Or Tomb Raider.

 

[LeleSocho]

N64 standard ram is 4MB
Games like Mario 64 are 8MB

Let's say Nintendo would have used the same CD ROM player as the ps1 which was a 2x (300kb/s)

To have a game like Mario 64 you have to load only twice, once at the beginning for 12 seconds and a second time midway always for 12 seconds, let's even say that because of some reason you'll need to load another couple of times for a couple of seconds...

Why people are saying that games like this couldn't be made with a CD or that would hinder incredibly the experience?

This without considering the fact that maybe using CDs they (or SGI) would have built an architecture more akin to the use of CDs and therefore more optimized.

 

[Pimpbaa]

There would have actually been some games to buy and they wouldn't have been retardedly expensive. I loved my NES and SNES because of games from the likes of Capcom and Konami (and countless other good third party developers), not just Nintendo's own games. Yes I know there were some good third party games on the N64. Keyword there being some. Anybody who wasn't a kid when the N64 came out and had a nice disposable income would incredibly frustrated with the N64's anemic release schedule. I know I was. I was playing tons of games on my PS1 between each good N64 released. And once I finished that N64 game, the system would go back to collecting dust. Of course, this is if third parties continued to support Nintendo with this hypothetical CD-ROM based N64. I guess there were other factors as well. Still baffles me that some still defend Nintendo's decision to go with cartridges. No loading times wasn't worth more expensive games, stifled game development, and poor third party support. Hell, the N64 would have had massively better music too if it used CDs, especially since it had no dedicated sound chip.

 

[MrCunningham]

Some say the NGCDZ was just a single speed with more better buffer memory. Also prone to overheating.

Oh, I didn't know that. I always assumed it was a double speed CD ROM system. That's interesting. I have heard about the overheating issues in the NGCDZ though, and that might explain it.

There were also SNES games with loading times, SF Alpha II for example. It used a special chip to decompress data, that was cheaper than using a larger cartridge.

For a cartridge game, SF II Alpha on the SNES has some notoriously bad loading times. But it is interesting that they used a special compression chip to store more data onto the cartridge. Another SNES game that had terrible loading times is Batman Forever by Acclaim. But the less we talk about that game, the better.

But that was the only secret. Lots of content in very low quality. Even the Mega Drive/Genesis could do FMVs, see the intro of Sonic 3D Blast.

And Red Zone on the Genesis too.

GBA games also used a lot of compressed .wav files. Max Payne has a lot of the voice audio from the original PC game, even though it sounded very grainy. I think the largest GBA carts were like 32MB.

 

[andrerobot]

Loading ...

 

[starwarsfan541]

The question also has to be do they keep the cartridge slot and release the cd attachment as was planned, have both like the saturn or just cd only.

Preferably its the second, going off that, I think Nintendo wins the generation, Sega was falling on its own sword and sony got too many breaks originally.

While some third parties still defect to Nintendo, Square is much less likely too and more third party games, especially in Japan boost the sales their dramatically. If they allow for 2d games to be made easier as well, that would help a lot too.

If they keep rareware, I could see the gamecube being much stronger sales and game wise than otl

 

[Markitron]

The N64 was my favourite console of all time, it was perfect as it was and I wouldn't change a thing. People give the PS1's disc drive too much credit, there were plenty of reasons it dominated the N64.

 

[encephalon]

Nintendo could have had lower licensing fees already. They still didn't have them with the GameCube.

It probably wouldn't have changed.

 

[samn]

The N64 was my favourite console of all time, it was perfect as it was and I wouldn't change a thing. People give the PS1's disc drive too much credit, there were plenty of reasons it dominated the N64.

What about higher framerates?

I want to play MM but I just can't because it's impossible to play it in any version above 20fps

Thank christ they released OOT on 3DS at a full 30fps.

 

[AmyS]

Nintendo 64 with CD-ROM drive would've been really interesting, but only if it had cartridge as well for speed. Cart-only games, CD-ROM games and even cart-CD games.

That said, I think the cancellation of the Matsushita / Panasonic M2 was the most heartbreaking loss of that generation.

The final M2 had:

* 4x speed CD-ROM drive
* 8 MB RAM
* 4x the texture cache of Nintendo 64 (16K vs 4K)
* About three times the polygon performance of Nintendo 64
* All the effects Nintendo 64 could and then some.
* Twin PowerPC 602 CPUs, but unlike Saturn, M2 was designed for multi cpu and relative ease of development
* Reportedly 80 games in development by 1997

 

[iidesuyo]

Nintendo 64 with CD-ROM drive would've been really interesting, but only if it had cartridge as well for speed. Cart-only games, CD-ROM games and even cart-CD games.

That said, I think the cancellation of the Matsushita / Panasonic M2 was the most heartbreaking loss of that generation.

The final M2 had:

* 4x speed CD-ROM drive
* 8 MB RAM
* 4x the texture cache of Nintendo 64 (16K vs 4K)
* About three times the polygon performance of Nintendo 64
* All the effects Nintendo 64 could and then some.
* Twin PowerPC 602 CPUs, but unlike Saturn, M2 was designed for multi cpu and relative ease of development
* Reportedly 80 games in development by 1997

Interesting, but I hope that's a very early prototype, because it looks like shit.

 

[LeleSocho]

Nintendo 64 with CD-ROM drive would've been really interesting, but only if it had cartridge as well for speed. Cart-only games, CD-ROM games and even cart-CD games.

That said, I think the cancellation of the Matsushita / Panasonic M2 was the most heartbreaking loss of that generation.

The final M2 had:

* 4x speed CD-ROM drive
* 8 MB RAM
* 4x the texture cache of Nintendo 64 (16K vs 4K)
* About three times the polygon performance of Nintendo 64
* All the effects Nintendo 64 could and then some.
* Twin PowerPC 602 CPUs, but unlike Saturn, M2 was designed for multi cpu and relative ease of development
* Reportedly 80 games in development by 1997

Holy crap, never knew of this console... it's a beast!

 

[Ninja Scooter]

I'm not so sure the post-SNES era Nintendo was willing to end a lot of the draconian policies that were just as much of a factor in driving third parties away as the format choice was. Square probably still would have gone to Sony.

 

[MisterHero]

How could they, the DD was another shady add on in the lines of the Mega CD or the 32X, that thing was doomed from the beginning. Nintendo only released it because they could. It was another failure in the making, 3 months before the release of the PS2.

I disagree. Suikoden or Castlevania SotN would not have been the same games with MIDI soundtracks. Or Tomb Raider.

The N64DD's featureset absolutely stomps those Genesis add-ons. It was just expensive and no one would realistically take advantage of its features.

Famicom and Super FC also had add-ons. They realized they could finish the DD games in cartridge format, as they did sometimes on the earlier consoles (Zelda 1, 2, OoT).

 

[Disaster Nebraska]

Considering their draconian policies I don't think things would have worked out all that differently.

This. EA had already jumped over to SEGA during the 16-bit era and devs were feeling the pinch from Nintendo's abusive policies (which certainly were necessary in the 80s but not in the 90s).

Sony also advertised very heavily against Nintendo (even moreso than Genesis-era SEGA, which is saying something), so...yeah.

 

[MrCunningham]

Holy crap, never knew of this console... it's a beast!

This thing was hyped a lot by gaming publications before it was cancelled. The 3DO M2 would have been released sometime around 1997, a year before the Japanese Sega Dreamcast launch and the M2 hardware would have fallen somewhere between the N64 and Dreamcast in terms of hardware specs.

Here's a video of an actual racing demo running off of real M2 prototype hardware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wjOnJkJRzsI#t=118

The Dreamcast hardware would have blown this away in most respects, especially in the texture department. image quality and CPU horse power, I'm not sure if it would have pushed more polygons though. The DC has 16MBs of system RAM with 8MB's of video RAM which most of it can be dedicated to texture cache.

 

[baphomet]

Holy crap, never knew of this console... it's a beast!

Well it was going to compete with the ps2, not the ps1 and n64.

 

[LeleSocho]

This thing was hyped a lot by gaming publications before it was cancelled. The 3DO M2 would have been released sometime around 1997, a year before the Japanese Sega Dreamcast launch and the M2 hardware would have fallen somewhere between the N64 and Dreamcast in terms of hardware specs.

Here's a video of an actual racing demo running off of real M2 prototype hardware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wjOnJkJRzsI#t=118

The Dreamcast hardware would have blown this away in most respects, especially in the texture department. image quality and CPU horse power, I'm not sure if it would have pushed more polygons though. The DC has 16MBs of system RAM with 8MB's of video RAM which most of it can be dedicated to texture cache.

Yeah obviously it was behind the Dreamcast, it would've created the perfect bridge between the generations though

Well it was going to compete with the ps2, not the ps1 and n64.

Depends... if it was going to be released in early 97 imho it still had the chance to be perceived as a ps1 n64 antagonist by the public.

---

Good times the late 90s... you could literally have twice as powerful hardware than the at the time bleeding edge for the same price or less within months of its release.

 

[MrCunningham]

Good times the late 90s... you could literally have twice as powerful hardware than the at the time bleeding edge for the same price or less within months of its release.

Hardware advancements in the 90s' were so crazy when you look it from 1991 to 1999.

1990- 91: SNES
1992: Sega CD (granted, just an add on, but it did add hardware scaling and rotation)
1993: Panasonic 3DO, Atari Jaguar (this is like a generational jump in the span of a couple years)
1994/95: Sony Playstation, Sega Saturn, Sega 32x
1996: N64 (arguably not a massive jump, but the N64 did help set new standards in accelerated 3D hardware)
Hypothetical 1997: This one doesn't count, but if the M2 was released on this year it would have been a huge leap over the N64.
1998-99: Sega Dreamcast

That's like roughly three console generation leaps in a decade. Though arguably the SNES did show up late to the 16bit party. Also, there was PC accelerated hardware developing alongside this, and it was evolving at an alarming rate.

And then through the 2000's it was like this for home consoles

2000- PlayStation 2
2001- GameCube, Xbox
2005- Xbox 360
2006- PS3, Wii

2012- Wii-U
2013 - Xbox One PlayStation 4

Man... things really slowed down on the console front since the 90s', especially between 2006 and 2013. Granted PC hardware has been steadily advancing throughout those years, but yeah, on the console side things got a little too complacent. It's like the mobile phone market now is where home consoles were back then, right now mobile phone developers are going crazy with releasing hardware that is inclemently better on a yearly basis.

 

[IrishNinja]

The N64 could do 2d games just as well or better than Saturn as it is!

 

[Krejlooc]

- no way Squaresoft would have dared to take the risk to develop for the PS1
- many more developers would have supported it
- Nintendo could have countered the low license fees of the PS1
- with the RAM expansion the N64 would have been on par with the Saturn 2D games

Going with cartridges was a stupid idea. Later ones even had loading times because they had to be decompressed.

If the multiverse theory is not just bullshit, I'd love to travel to a universe where there was a CD-ROM N64.

Nintendo didn't lose Square and other developers because of CD-Rom technology.

They lost their 3rd party relations because Nintendo tried to rule over them with illegal and iron-fisted policies and the 3rd party developers weren't stupid. Even after the N64 launched, Nintendo still had draconian policies about "dream team" developers, and if you weren't a part of the dream team, fuck off.

 

[Talon]

What's up with the gross exaggerations of PS1 load times in this thread? Generally, the only load times worth mentioning were upon booting the game. I can't think of a single game that took more than 5 seconds to load between levels.

I mean, okay, you guess you have to convince yourself that the cartridge format gave some massive advantage to Nintendo, rather than being a crippling drawback, but for God's sake, stop the misinformation about the PS1.

FF8 definitely had some long load times that I remember reading magazines through.

Same with PSO on the Dreamcast, though.

 

[A Black Falcon]

The N64 was my favourite console of all time, it was perfect as it was and I wouldn't change a thing. People give the PS1's disc drive too much credit, there were plenty of reasons it dominated the N64.

The N64 is my favorite console too, but I would change two things about it:

1) A larger texture cache. This was the system's only real hardware flaw.

2) Either cancel the 64DD in '98, or release it BY '98, worldwide. Do NOT do what you did, releasing the thing in Japan only in late '99 for reasons of pride more than anything else. If it wasn't ready when it was actually needed, it shouldn't havebeen released at all. And looking back, it wasn't really needed. For instance, would an Zelda: OoT which required the 64DD have sold as well, considering how pricey that thing probably would have been? I know the idea of a large writeable media device is a good one for things like the Mario Artist titles, but the 64DD was a big distraction and just wasn't ready, or something the market really wanted by the time it was actually done. Two thirds of all N64s sold worldwide were sold in North America. If the 64DD wasn't going to release here, don't release it at all... and if it was going to release here in late '99... why? It'd have done better than it did in Japan, because of the larger market, but it'd still have been a failure and a distraction.

Yup, IIRC that thing could only handle 64MB, about as much as the last cartridges offered. Completely useless.

Yeah, that's another strike against the 64DD, it wasn't larger than the largest carts.

Of course, that the games are on floppy disks, that notoriously unreliable media format, is also bad. Floppies are TERRIBLE for long-term storage, they fail!

http://i.minus.com/ic1INygyhpzkY.gif[/QUOTE]
If you aren't willing to understand that the N64 has few 2d games that aren't low-budget puzzle games and such because developers didn't want to make them, and not because its hardware, which is better than the Saturn's in pretty much every way, couldn't do it, that's your problem, not the N64's. :)

[quote="Krejlooc, post: 135231049"]Nintendo didn't lose Square and other developers because of CD-Rom technology.

They lost their 3rd party relations because Nintendo tried to rule over them with illegal and iron-fisted policies and the 3rd party developers weren't stupid. Even after the N64 launched, Nintendo still had draconian policies about "dream team" developers, and if you weren't a part of the dream team, fuck off.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, this is the main thing that people who think that a CD-based N64 would have solved everything are missing -- Nintendo's problems were just as much about this as it was about the media. The CD thing was used as an excuse, so maybe having CDs would have helped... but Sony would still have taken away a LOT of developers, no question.

[quote="JordanN, post: 134958085"]I honestly don't think CD's got in the way of streaming levels. It wasn't just Driver. Mega Man Legends also offered open world maps that let you explore and fight enemies too. The game only suffered frame rate drops and pop in (which is only natural since it's PS1 hardware). Same goes for Gex 3.

But I didn't come here to discuss CPU specs since that's a completely different issue.[/QUOTE]
Good streaming tech was harder than you suggest... and are you sure that those games you mention there use streaming from the disc?

[quote="iidesuyo, post: 135199327"]Yamauchi said that they wanted the cheap developers to go away, and let "quality rule over quantity" regarding 3rd Parties. In the end they got neither quality nor quantity.[/QUOTE]
Actually the N64 has the highest-quality library of any console ever, in my opinion at least, so there's that. :)

 

[Doczu]

Based on what? This seems entirely like sticking a finger in the air.

Soul Reaver has a number of huge environments too, and does some other very impressive things with real time geometry transform.

Soul Reaver had a quite sophisticated loading system which was hidden through corridors and small passageways between large enviroments. To get from one open space to another you have to walk through a corridor, open a door and then take another corridor to an open space.
In OoT when you move from one room to another through doors the game loads the room in a blink of an eye. Totally not possible on the PS1

 

[Evilbert]

The n64 disk drive can be imported from japan!!! Hao ever it sucked ass it never sold!!! The big N only put out 7-8 games and
most were huge turds art with mario crap!!!
Then a huge Sims game that also sucked!!
There are a few copies of super Mario 64 disk
Version. But impossible to get!!!! 2 mabye 3 exhist!

 

[Rich!]

The n64 disk drive can be imported from japan!!! Hao ever it sucked ass it never sold!!! The big N only put out 7-8 games and
most were huge turds art with mario crap!!!
Then a huge Sims game that also sucked!!
There are a few copies of super Mario 64 disk
Version. But impossible to get!!!! 2 mabye 3 exhist!

Wut

I think you need to calm down. Like, for real.

Also, F Zero X Expansion Kit was amazing.
Stereo sound music, extra cups, level editor, car editor, etc.

 

[mocoworm]

A CD Rom based N64 would have ruined Sony's party.

The Nintendo CDROM was a partnership with SONY. The breakup of the deal led to SONY releasing the PS1.

SONY would have done well either way.